CHAPTER 2. TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI)
Nick Rushworth is more familiar than
most CEOs with the effects of
traumatic brain injury (TBI). Twenty
years ago, he was in a major bicycle
accident involving a head-on collision with
a car. He was hit mid-leg, breaking both
his femur and the bicycle frame.
“I was catapulted over the bonnet
of the car and took the full force of the
impact near my right ear,” Rushworth
says. “I pretty much fractured my skull
right around.”
Motor vehicle accidents are the
second-most common cause of TBI in
Australia, after falls. Depending on its
severity, TBI can cause a range of long-
term disabilities and changes in feeling,
thoughts and behaviour.
Rushworth has no memory of his
accident — nor of the proceeding two
weeks he spent in hospital. “My almost-
continuous memory starts again when
I was discharged from hospital into
rehabilitation, but even then, it was very
fragmented,” he recalls now.
He also suffered short-term memory
impairment. “I used to tell anyone who
cared to listen about the story of my
accident, and tell them repeatedly,”
he says.
A neuropsychological assessment
brought sombre news: it found “that
my intellectual capacity, my ability to
concentrate, to plan, to organise, was
going to be ‘radically impaired’.”
Despite this, Rushworth began a graded
return to work as a journalist at the ABC
in Sydney, and was back working full-time
six months following the accident. Initially,
he found the noise of the busy newsroom
environment challenging, but feels
fortunate that his working life was able to
continue more or less unaffected.
“I had a really easeful return to work,
given the severity of my injury,” he says,
adding however that this isn’t the case
for the vast majority of people who suffer
a brain injury. “For a lot of people, the
lack of public awareness about brain
injury means that, in a return-to-work
context, their inability to concentrate, to
pay attention, and their fatigue — which is
a huge issue post–brain injury — is often
mistaken for laziness.”
Behavioural problems, Rushworth adds,
are sometimes perceived as simply being
“who’ve they’ve always been as a person”,
a misconception that he says is “re-
disabling” for the injured individual.
Rushworth is now the Executive Officer
of Brain Injury Australia, the peak body
for more than 700,000 Australians living
with acquired brain injury. In this role, he
raises awareness about the causes, types,
and effects of brain injury, ranging from
concussion in sport to more severe brain
injury resulting from assault or accidents.
“The aim,” he says, “is to make
someone’s return to work or return to
community life as easeful as it was for me.”
Perspectives
NICK RUSHWORTH
EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
BRAIN INJURY AUSTRALIA
“THE LACK OF PUBLIC
AWARENESS ABOUT BRAIN
INJURY MEANS THAT, IN
A RETURN-TO-WORK
CONTEXT, THEIR INABILITY
TO CONCENTRATE, TO PAY
ATTENTION, AND THEIR FATIGUE
IS OFTEN MISTAKEN FOR
LAZINESS.”